Well written short stories that contain characters who seem to live on the edge. The characters are those who seem to have one foot over the abyss, and because life isn't working as it should, many are ready to take the final step.

An award-winning Canadian book, I liked some of the stories and had empathy, while other characters were near-do-wells with whom I couldn't relate. ( )

(Fiction, Short Stories, Atlantic Canadian)

From Amazon: “From the caretaker of a prairie amusement park to the lone occupant of a collapsing Newfoundland town, from a travelling sports drink marketer with a pressing need to get off the road to an elevator inspector who finds himself losing his marriage while sensuously burying himself in the tastes and smells of the kitchen, these are people who spin wildly out of control, finding themselves in a new and different world.”

Whirl Away was the winner of the 2013 Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, was shortlisted for the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and was a finalist for the 2012 BMO Winterset Award.

I highly recommend this collection.

4½ stars ( )

Usually the title of a short story collection is taken from the title of one of the stories it contains.
Not this one. None of the stories are called “Whirl Away”.
But they do all represent people whirling away in some form or another. They lose control, and can only follow the rule of centripetal force. The violent directions are inevitable and the forces difficult to overcome.
The most outstanding and unsettling story, “Echo”, is about a 5 year old boy, alone in the back yard, observing and evaluating minute details. “Suddenly, there were seeds from dandelions parachuting in on the wind under their silver-white canopies, regiments of soldiers, landing all around him, and Kevin was the only one left to protect the base, the only survivor.” He only talks in “short, tight bursts of words.” The words of his father leave his lips like some bizarre remote mouthpiece. He is like a parrot that can say the sentences but doesn’t know the meaning. Slowly the story is unfolded, pulling back one flap after another, to reveal the tragic and powerful core.
Death, accidents, violence, ambulances figure prominently. The details rang true too, as if written by an insider, someone who’s been there. The author was a volunteer firefighter for a few years. His bio says that he finally left after being “shaken by the horror and loss he encountered”. These experiences have clearly informed his stories.
Wangersky’s writing is wonderful. His years as a newspaperman are evident in the spare, tight style that make these stories so fluid. Yet the writing is often leavened with poetic prose that perfectly captures and expresses a moment, a thought, an attitude.
This is the best kind of book — it is a feast of words and sentences to be savoured, and they combine to produce polished gems of stories. ( )

The characters who populate the stories in Russell Wangersky's collection Whirl Away are risk takers who frequently face down life-threatening situations and even death—or else embark on risky behaviour that leads them to the brink of what is morally or socially acceptable. Because of this, most of these grim, spare stories have some degree of narrative urgency about them that propels the reader through. Wangersky's most trusted strategy is to drop the reader into a situation that is well on its way to completion, or which has been concluded some time ago and the narrator is reviewing it in flashback. These approaches are effective and make for compelling reading more often than not. However, when the same narrative structures are repeated over several stories in succession, the result can seem monotonous and somewhat predictable. The best stories here are the ones in which we see a character at a significant life moment, and either he (or she) reaches a decision ("No Harm, No Foul") or must pay the price for past transgressions ("Family Law"). Other stories succeed because Wangersky cleverly structures the narrative so that the reader becomes heavily invested in a character's fate (“Open Arms,” "I Like"). The less successful stories are the ones where a character acts impulsively or obsessively, taking risks that seem foolish (“911“), or imperiling a relationship for no good reason (“Sharp Corner”). Throughout, the writing exhibits the blunt terseness of the best journalism, a quality that makes every word count but also means literary flourishes are few. The subject matter (broken relationships, personal tragedies) leans toward the gloomy side of human experience (few if any of Wangersky's characters are happy about anything), but Whirl Away is still enjoyable and thought-provoking for anyone interested in the art of the short story. The book was long-listed for the 2013 Giller Prize and won the 2013 Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize. ( )

A wonderful collection of short stories which centre on character and the more psychological aspects of experience and circumstance on the variety of people introduced. Worthwhile read. ( )